Friday, February 10, 2006

Daily SomeAchaar

Reactions to Cartoons Intensify

Reactions against the by now well-known Danish cartoons have escalated to alarming levels. Burning flags of Denmark is set to become passe.

In LieLapur, a staging of Shakespeare's Hamlet was disrupted. A group of men lead by a Qazi climbed on the stage, and beat up the actor playing Prince Hamlet. Later the Qazi explained that it was rage against the Danish cartoons that made him do so, since Hamlet is the Prince of Denmark in the play.

In Jhootabad, enraged men went from house to house rounding up dogs of the Great Dane breed, gathered them in the city centre and shot them all dead, in protest against the Jyllands Posten cartoons.

Meanwhile a youngster named Salman in the city of Boolshet was almost beaten to death when he suggested to his friends that the dinner they were planning to have at a restaurant be a 'dutch treat'. His friends later explained that they were under the mistaken impression that 'Dutch' refers to people from Denmark and not Netherlands.

An enraged group of activists also hunted down CDs and DVDs of the Disney movie 'Little Mermaid' and burnt them in a middle-sized bonfire in the city of Tingi.

Protests world over show no signs of abating.

Kaneria banned for life by PCB

The Pakistan Cricket Board, bowing down to intense public pressure, has announced that leg-spinner Danish Kaneria has been banned from playing cricket for Pakistan. The ban will stay in place unless he changes his first name.

Hussain Apologises

In a development completely unrelated to the Danish cartoon issue, noted painter M F Hussain recently announced that he had concluded his 10-year long musing on the issue of his nude paintings of Hindu gods and goddesses.

Chatting with our correspondent over MIRC, he said that ever since objections were raised against his nude portrayal of Sita, Saraswati, Hanuman etc, around a decade back, he had been thinking whether the paintings really contained anything which could offend Hindus. The thinking process had now concluded and he realised that Hindus were justified in being offended. He has thus decided to apologise to Hindus and withdraw the paintings from exhibitions and auctions.

We at the Daily SomeAchaar would again wish to stress that there is absolutely no link between the Danish cartoon issue and Hussain's apology.

Update: Didn't think I'd need to add this as a disclaimer, but oh well. The "Someachaar" reports are all spoofs. Any post that appears with that title is a spoof/satire, and the concept is shamelessly inspired by The Onion.